10 Cutting-Edge Coworking Spaces

If you’re a solo entrepreneur or freelancer working
remotely from home but looking for more company and stimulation on a daily
basis, hooking up with a local coworking space might be a perfect fit. In
fact, there’s currently a boom in the number of spaces popping up around the
country. Here are a few that really stand out for their creativity and sense of
place:

If you’re the type of person who enjoys
keeping active during the workday, then Brooklyn Boulders' second location
just outside Boston may be your dream come true. The 40,000-square-foot facility
includes a 120-ft. long, 22-ft. high climbing wall on top of which sits an "active collaborative workspace." Even if climbing is not your thing, you'll find stand-up desks with built-in pull-up bars, balance balls, treadmill desks
and plenty of open spaces designed to stimulate innovation
and creativity. There’s even a weight room, sauna and yoga studio.
“The whole premise of the facility is to blur the lines between work, life and
play,” says Jesse Levin, co-founder and "senior cultural chameleon."

For a monthly memberships starting at $300, Link offers its
members ergonomic furniture, outlets at every seat, snacks and coffee, and even
a covered outdoor space. You can even pay extra to use Link’s mailing address
for your correspondence or hire a “Linktern” to help you get
your work done. “When I couldn’t find a clean, modern, professional and open
coworking space I wanted to work in,” says founder/owner Liz Elam, “I decided to make one.”

If the more male-dominated tech-focused coworking spaces don’t work for you,
you might consider Hera Hub, a female-centric workspace that founder
Felena Hanson calls, “spa inspired.” The 4,000 to 5,000 square-foot spaces have
an ambiance fueled by running water, the scent of candles, gentle lighting and
plenty of art made by female artists. “We want people who are appreciative of
our space and who want a collaborative way of doing business,” says Hanson,
noting that prospective members have to apply and be approved before joining. There are three Hera Hub locations in the San Diego area. Hanson recently got approval to franchise her concept and hopes to open 200 new
spaces nationwide in the next five years.

Grand Rapids is experiencing an ongoing revival where more
and more people want to live and work downtown – which is exactly where The
Factory, a collaborative 5,000-square-foot workspace, is located. From white
boards and Skype rooms to community events like Beer:30, The Factory is a busy
place some 700 members make use of every month. “We fit into this bigger
trend where people want to choose who they want to work with,” says founder
Aaron Schaap. “We wanted to create a sense of place and a community that would
be like the show 'Cheers,' where everyone will know your name.”

PARISOMA was started by FABERNOVEL, a French innovation
consulting company, to serve as a platform where startups and large companies
could work side by side and grow with each other. The 8,000 square-foot lofted
space also serves as a community hub for the community, hosting classes on topics ranging from Ruby on Rails and Photoshop, to
immigration law. Part incubator, PARISOMA has served as a launching pad for several
successful startups like QuickPay and VidCaster. “We want to support our
members and help them leave us because they are doing so well,” Melanie Duve, startup services and events director.

Located
downtown in the historic Guiry/Schillestad building, Makers Space is a
7,000-square-foot space filled with the amenities any entrepreneur or working
professional would love: conference rooms, wireless Internet, printers,
projectors, event space, telephone booths, a large kitchen, and
a comfortable lounge area. Makers Space has proven so popular, its founders,
Caitlin Agnew and Lana Morisoli, have a new 3,700 square-foot expansion
underway that will add room for another 50 desks or so. “Our space is really
warm and has great light,” says Morisoli, who is also an interior designer.
“We're focused on how people function and how do they want to work.”

The city of Atlanta is emerging as a major hub for
tech startups, and the Atlanta Tech Village (the Village as it's known) coworking space
is doing its part to fuel the thriving ecosystem. Opened in 2013, the space continues to
expand and will eventually hold up to 700 members, have more than 50 conference
rooms and breakout spaces, 60-plus modular suites, a large events center that holds
300 people, as well as a video production lab complete with state-of-the-art cameras and editing equipment. When members aren’t working,
they can play ping pong and shuffleboard, sample free organic snacks, and have
their choice of tasty beverages. “The Village is now the
largest entrepreneurship center in the Southeast and one of the 10 largest in
the country,” says founder David Cummings. “Our goal is to create 10,000 new
jobs over the next 10 years.”

While oil (or maybe the Cowboys) might be the first thing
that comes to mind when you hear the word Dallas, it’s also
becoming a hub of entrepreneurial talent. A great place to find many of the city's creative professionals is The Common Desk located in the Deep Ellum
neighborhood. More than 100 companies call the 7,500 square-foot space home. And with a 4,500 square-foot expansion coming in 2014, which will
include a tree house and a cave-like member lounge, The Common Desk's appeal
will continue to surge. “We have to be functional from a design standpoint,”
says owner Nick Clark. “But being different is important, as well. We’re always
transforming the space so it continues to feel alive.”

Occupying 33,000 square feet at the top of a historic building just blocks from the White House, 1776 is a kind of high-tech space
the founding fathers could never have dreamed of. Donna Harris and
Evan Burfield created it as a hub specifically for startups operating in
sectors that are heavily influenced by the government. Not only is the space
itself stunning, there are the people you’ll meet there, who include:
governors, mayors, heads of state, university presidents, and CEOs of major
companies, all who frequent the space to attend events and provide mentorship
opportunities. “The people drawn to 1776 are those looking to tackle the
biggest challenges of today’s society, in a city that is uniquely positioned to
help them do so,” says Harris.

Whether it’s the original 7,500-square-foot space on Park Avenue in Manhattan
or its larger 14,000-square-foot partner on Broadway, Grind offers its members
an escape from the bustling streets of New York City. With access to high-speed
WiFi, and high caffeine coffee, “Grindists” as they call themselves, get access
to a highly-productive space that includes all the features you’d expect from a
cutting-edge co-working space, including comfortable furniture that is also
recyclable and biodegradable. In fact, the Grind model is going viral, as
they’ve just opened up a third location, this time in Chicago. “Like Free
Radicals, Grind is intelligent,” says co-founder Ty Montague. “It learns,
adapts, and evolves as people use it. It's a space that will keep getting
better, a space that gets to know you, a space that feels like you own it.”

The coworking trend has even begun to impact large
companies. Coca-Cola, for example, has established an internal coworking space
of its own capable of hosting 60 to 70 people. The idea was to create a space
that would stimulate innovation and new ways of thinking, says April Redmond
Echols, project coordinator for Global innovation and Entrepreneurship at
Coca-Cola.

“We wanted a place that would encourage entrepreneurial behaviors
similar to what we see in any startup in the world,” she explains. The space is
home to a 3-D printer and has hosted a series of Startup
Weekend events where Coke employees collaborate on new product ideas, like a
bicycle-powered cooler that made its way around the country during the college football season.